


Dying is Easy, Comedy is Hard

by orphan_account



Category: Watchmen
Genre: 1000-5000 Words, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Gen, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-07
Updated: 2009-10-07
Packaged: 2017-10-05 22:49:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adrienne Veidt Vs. Edward Morgan Blake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dying is Easy, Comedy is Hard

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to runriggers@LJ for the beta.

1959 - How do you get rid of a blonde?

Nice girls don't follow strange men into alleyways at 2 AM in the morning, and the Comedian is a very strange man.

...

The Comedian soon realises that he's being tailed, and pauses, but the only sound is the steady drip-drip of a water pipe and the distant rumble of traffic. Eventually, he emits a sigh that's loud enough to disturb the rats. "Come on," he says, addressing the darkness. "Stop screwing around."

Adi gives up. She steps out of the shadows, cutting off one of his potential exits.

The first thing he does is look her up and down. "What are you, eighteen years old?" he asks, but doesn't bother to wait for her answer. (She's twenty. Not that it should matter.) "Wait. I know you. Cleopatra. What do you want?"

"I'd like to talk to you about an old colleague of yours. Hooded Justice," Adi says - she makes a point of being polite, although she knows what sort of man he is.

"Yeah, right. If you wanted a conversation, why didn't you just skip the sneaky bullshit and say so?"

"Sorry. You're not very easy to pin down." Adi didn't bank on being noticed so soon. She makes herself give him a small smile. "...And I wanted to see if you were as sharp as they say you are. I guess you caught me."

The Comedian relaxes, but only slightly. He's vain, in his own way, but he's shrewd enough to know when he's being flattered. "You want to speak to me in future, just cut the foreplay and ask. What do you care about Hooded Justice, anyhow?"

"Why _shouldn't_ I care? He's been gone for almost four years. Doesn't that bother you?"

The Comedian eyes her, then shrugs. He reaches into a belt pouch for a lighter and one of those ridiculous cigars. "I've got better things to worry about, doll. But if you want to know about HJ, then fine. There's not a whole lot to say about the fruity bastard. Big guy with a funny accent, didn't speak much, ran scared rather than face the HUAC. Sally and Captain Metropolis knew him better than I did. You spoke to them yet?"

Adi has already lost interest in playing coy. "You investigated his disappearance."

The Comedian's expression hardens. Perhaps he can already see where she's going with this. "If you know that, then I bet you also know that it was a complete goddamn waste of time. The guy's gone, dollface. He's _vamos_. If you want to find him, then good luck with that. Dunno where he came from, dunno where he went, neither. Not my problem no more."

"A body fitting his description washed up on the coast of Boston, three months following his disappearance."

He looks at her as if she's stupid. (It's something that she's used to.) "So?" he says.

"So," she says. "I don't believe that he gave you the slip."

The Comedian shakes his head, and smiles. "You can't prove anything." It's not a denial. It's a boast.

"Give me time," she says. It's not an affirmation. It's a threat.

The Comedian mulls over her words, then throws his cigar on the floor, untouched and unlit. "You've got a lot of fuckin' nerve," he says. "Shit, what are you doing in this part of town at this time of night, anyway? A girl like you could get hurt." He pauses, because he has an appreciation for good timing, then adds, "But I bet you know that."

Adi regards him blandly. "You're trying to intimidate me," she says, "but you don't want to intimidate me so much that I'll walk away. Because you're waiting for me to give you an excuse."

He stares at her incredulously, and laughs. And he says: "You give me too much credit. I don't need an excuse."

It's an adequate warning: she sees the first punch from a mile off, and ducks it. He's large, fast, and has better reach than she does - she's still quicker, but that's not enough, and experience counts for a lot. When she dodges him again and again, she's so focused on defense that she can't attack. She knows that she'll have to take a few hits in order to touch him - he's an unimaginative combatant, solid yet formulaic - but she's young, she's green, and she's wondering what the hell she's just got herself into. It's a fight that a more modest person would run away from.

For a split second, there's a lag in his reactions - maybe he's underestimating her, getting sloppy, because it's clear he's going to win this one - and Adi strikes. Her left hook connects with his jaw and it's like punching concrete, but it's enough to snap his head back.

He's good, but he's not so good that he can't be surpassed.

He recovers quickly, and Adi finds herself focused on defense again, and...

He feints.

Then he hits her, and the world explodes. It's like a negative orgasm.

When she can think clearly again, she's already on the floor.

She pushes herself up onto her elbows, and spits out blood. She realises that she must have bit her own tongue. It's just pain, and pain is as temporary as everything else, but she still has to concentrate to avoid throwing up. The nausea makes time dilate.

There's something small and shiny on the floor, a piece of broken tooth, and she's just staring at it and trying to focus when the Comedian kicks her in the ribs. Her body curls up into a ball and devotes itself entirely to fighting for air.

She's dimly aware that he's standing over her, and a primal sense of panic threatens to set in. The panic is a perfectly reasonable reaction.

He crouches beside her, and puts a hand on her left shoulder. His other hand holds her arm, as if he's going to help her up.

His grip tightens. He does something - she's not sure what - and he dislocates her shoulder, just to show that he can.

He listens close to hear the involuntary whimper that she makes.

After an indeterminable period of time, she hears his footsteps retreat back down the alleyway... And she realises that she has her eyes screwed shut, which is probably the most disgusting thing about the entire episode. She's aware of the desire to cry, probably a result of shock.

Adi takes a few minutes to collect her wits, then picks up her broken tooth and slowly walks home.

She knows what to do differently in future.

===

1960 - What did the blonde say to the physicist? 

The next time they see each other is at a Red Cross charity fundraiser.

Adi does her best to ignore him. She's much more interested in Doctor Manhattan.

It's difficult to speak to Manhattan, because so many other people - men, important men - are also vying for his attention. Still, Adi manages to catch his eye; they shake hands, exchange smiles, and she comments on the significance of his name. Somehow, that leads to a conversation about the work of Leó Szilárd and, from that, the subject of sustainable energy. Doctor Manhattan's girlfriend stares at her, which is tiresome, but to be expected.

Eventually, Adi decides to leave Manhattan alone, and opts to talk to the girlfriend instead.

The girlfriend's name is Janey Slater; inevitably, she's wary at first, she does warm up eventually. There's not always much to be gained by threatening other women, and Slater seems to be grateful for Adi's interest in her. It's funny; no-one really seems to treat Slater like she's very important, but Adi has always been good at seeing the potential in people.

Before they part, they promise each other that they'll stay in touch.

When she finds herself alone once again, Adi gets a glass of water and sits down at an unoccupied table. The men watch her. They should be more careful about looking at pretty girls. They tend to forget that pretty girls also look back.

She's just wondering if someone is going to work up the courage to start hitting on her when she sees the Comedian approach.

He sits next to her, just to see how she'll react. She gives him a perfect Duchenne smile.

He smiles back, gloating, which strikes her as being very childish.

"Hey, Cleo. How's the shoulder?" he asks.

"It's fine," she says, despite everything. "And I got my tooth fixed." She shows him by grinning. _All the better to eat you with._

The Comedian leans back in his seat, propping an elbow on the table. "Mind if I smoke?" he says, while lighting a cigar anyway. He takes a long drag, then eyes her. "You're something special, you know that?"

"Yes."

He doesn't reply to that, but sits there and sucks on his cigar.

"No offense," Adi says. "But I'm not going to have hate-sex with you."

The Comedian stares, then chortles. "Easy, tiger. Don't flatter yourself. You're not my type." He points the cigar at her. "You're damaged goods."

She bares her teeth and grins again. "You don't know anything about me."

"C'mon, kid, no-one puts on a catsuit and beats people up unless they're a bit wacky in the head," he says, giving her a withering look. "It takes one to know one."

"Go on, then," she prompts him. "What's my sickness?"

He leans back a bit, and squints. After a moment, he decides, "Masochistic attention whore."

"If you say so. You want to know what I think your sickness is?"

He gives her a smirk, humoring her. "Not really, but I'm sure you'll tell me anyway."

"You're scared."

"Scared of what?"

"Everything."

The Comedian purses his lips, and cants his head to one side, frowning. "You know... Shit, it's true. I wear lots of leather and go around breaking people's kneecaps because I'm secretly insecure and, deep inside, I'm just a fragile soul who lashes out at the world because I've been hurt too often. It really is that fuckin' simple. I'm a goddamn victim of society, that's what I am. Thanks for showing me the light."

Adi thinks he's funny, and laughs. (Men make jokes, women laugh.) When she stops laughing, she says, "Fear is a perfectly reasonable response." She gives him an insolent wink. "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

The Comedian hails a waiter for another much-needed drink. "Christ, you're as smug and self-righteous as you are fucknuts."

===

1966 - How do you make a blonde angry?

Somehow Adi finds herself in a dusty room, trying to defend the ideas of Nelson Gardner - a.k.a Captain Metropolis - to a group of disinterested strangers with whom she has very little in common. They're a peculiar group of odd adults in odder uniforms, and they all stand clustered around a 'crime map' of America that Nelson has set up on a display stand.

"Surely that's just an organizational problem?" she says, after one of them, Rorschach, protests that an official group of crimefighters would be too big and unwieldy. Adi keeps her tone firm but optimistic. "With the right person co-ordinating the group, I think..."

The Comedian interrupts. "Oh, an' I wonder who that would be? Got any ideas, Cleo? I mean, you are the world's smartest woman, for what _that's_ worth."

"It does seem like a sound idea in concept," says Nite Owl. "I just think that it'd be difficult to execute. That doesn't mean it'd be unworkable, though." Ever the gentleman, he has to step forward and defend her, which is all very sweet but she doesn't really need it and she sort of wants to strangle him.

She smiles at Nite Owl, and his expression turns slightly more stupid. Meanwhile, Rorschach stares at her for a bit too long, and Doctor Manhattan and Sally Jupiter's daughter make googly eyes at each other as Manhattan's girlfriend glowers at them both. Adi has the nasty suspicion that she's surrounded by teenagers.

Adi focuses on the Comedian again. "It doesn't require a genius to see that America has problems that need tackling..."

"Damn straight," says the Comedian. "And it takes a moron to think that they're small enough for clowns like you guys to handle. What's going down in this world, you got no idea. Believe me."

Adi amuses herself with a brief fantasy of stubbing the Comedian's cigar out in his right eye, although she does not feel anything quite so strong as anger. "I think I'm as well-informed as anyone. Given correct handling, none of the world's problems are insurmountable. All it takes is a little intelligence."

"Which you got in spades, right, Blondie?" the Comedian says, before turning his back on her. He addresses the others. "You people are a joke. You hear Moloch's back in town, you think 'oh boy, let's gang up and bust him!' You think that matters. You think that solves anything?"

Rorschach speaks up again. "Well, of course it matters. If..."

"It doesn't matter squat," the Comedian says, and turns to the 'crime map', with his lighter is in his hand. It's obvious what he's going to do. The flame is already licking at the edge of the paper. "Here, lemme show ya..."

"Hey! Wh-what are you doing?" says Nelson, as the map burns. Adi finds it a lot like watching a child's sandcastle get stomped on.

The Comedian ignores him. It's doubtful that he even takes satisfaction from Nelson's discomfort. He rants around the cigar in his mouth; "It doesn't matter squat because in thirty years the nukes will be flying like maybugs..."

The room begins to smell of burning paper. Adi hears Nelson say, "My display," but in a quieter voice.

"...And then Cleo here is going be the prettiest girl on the cinder. Now, pardon me, but I got an appointment. See you in the funny papers." The Comedian's work is done. He walks out, leaving Nelson to bat at the flames with his hands.

Things fall apart. Adi is dimly aware of the others making their excuses and leaving while Nelson pleads with them to stay, but she finds herself unable to care.

She's drawn to the ruined map. She rubs the charred paper between her fingers, watching it crumble to dust. America is gone. Behind her, she hears Nelson's tremulous, complaining voice, "_Somebody has to do it, don't you see? Somebody has to save the world..._"

It's all so horribly silly. Silly as a pair of gigantic legs in the middle of a desert.

Adi shakes her head, dusts the ash off her fingers, and goes to console Nelson. He's still standing in front of the doorway, shoulders slumped.

She gently touches his arm and he looks up at her, then straightens his posture and puts on a brave face. Adi likes Nelson; he's like the charmingly eccentric uncle she never had, and he's so harmless that his nastier right-wing tendencies don't bother her as much as they should. She feels a terrible need to protect him from a world that has made him redundant.

"The Comedian is all talk," she says. "He's just taking the coward's way out. It's easier to destroy than it is to build." Platitudes come easily to her.

"Thank you," Nelson says, with his usual awful sincerity. He sighs. Adi doesn't always know whether she wants to hug him or take him by the shoulders and shake him. "I'm just... Gosh, I'm sorry, Cleo - I'm not even sure anymore where it all went wrong. Honestly, when I was your age, I never expected things to turn out this way."

"Things never turn out the way you expect them to. Look at me, for instance; when I was very small, I wanted to be a midwife," says Adi. She isn't lying.

Nelson manages a thin smile, grateful for the distraction from his own failures - _anything_ is preferable to talking about the farcical meeting that they just endured. "Really? I think that's a lovely thing for a woman to be. What made you change your mind?"

"Oh, I don't know, my parents talked me out of it. And everything changes, I suppose," Adi says. "Anyway, I suppose it's like the saying: man plans, God laughs."

"I don't see what's so funny," Nelson murmurs, and goes to remove the remains of the map from the display board. "...I guess I'll tidy this place up."

"Need a hand with anything?"

"No, you can shoo. Thanks for coming, Cleo."

Adi doesn't ask him if he's going to be alright - she spares him that indignity, at least. She looks over her shoulder at him one last time before leaving the room.

Once she's outside, she stands under the building's veranda and listens to the city. She overhears a female voice raised in anger, and notices the Comedian and the Jupiter women a short distance away, locked in an argument. It's a pity that she can't quite hear what they're saying, although she catches the words 'what do you think I am?' and she knows that they will stay in her memory.

As Sally Jupiter herds her daughter into a nearby car, Adi catches the pleading note in the Comedian's voice. When they drive away, leaving the Comedian alone, his body language is similar to Nelson's.

===

1985 - What do you see when you look into a blonde's eyes?

It seems that the universe is hellbent on bringing them together.

Adi kicks in the door to the Comedian's apartment, and finds Eddie Blake, a brawny sixty-something in a dressing gown, sitting on a couch in front of the TV. He looks scared but not surprised.

He doesn't react fast enough. She's already hauling him upright by his collar, and her first punch knocks him back against the wall. He spits blood across the crotch of the Playboy model on the framed poster behind him, and Adi grabs him again and slams him against the glass, shattering it. (For a second, she sees many fractured reflections of herself.) A second punch leaves him on the floor in a bloodied heap.

Adi smiles and smiles and _smiles _as she kicks him in the ribs. The TV is turned up loud enough to cover the cries of pain.

At some point, she makes herself stop, and she looks down at him. He's a tough old bastard (he still wears his iconic smiley button, for what that's worth) and through his broken wheezing, he manages to rasp, "It all fuckin' figures. I knew that a woman'd be the death of me."

She's not going to lie to him and say that it's nothing personal. "I'll make it quick. That's the best that anyone can hope for."

He rolls over on to his side. His voice is thick with blood. "You psychotic cunt."

Adi crouches beside him, and feels two very familiar emotions: pity and disgust. "You've given up, haven't you? It's obvious you're outmatched, but you're not even trying." This isn't the Comedian she fought when she was twenty years old; this is someone else, someone old and broken. He's another disappointment.

He really has the saddest eyes. He coughs, then asks, "I w-want to know... Why?"

"I thought you were meant to be a nihilist," Adi says. "I don't suppose you know what a Pharmakos is, do you?"

"Not a fucking clue, you crazy bitch." He emits a painful chuckle. "I saw your designs. I saw it. Mother of Christ, it even looked like a huge..."

"Well, I _did_ want something that people would be frightened of," she deadpans.

It's not a joke that he appreciates; the Comedian coughs wetly again, and stares past her as he loses consciousness. Adi risks glancing over her shoulder to see what he's looking at, and follows his gaze to a Vargas print of Sally Jupiter, framed and mounted on the wall.

It's so pathetic that she wants to laugh, but she doesn't. If she hears herself laugh, then she will have to acknowledge certain truths about herself, and she can't afford to do that just yet. There's still so much work to do.

She shakes him gently, to make sure that he's awake. "Come on, Eddie. Time to go."

His eyes go wide as she grabs the collar of his dressing gown again and pulls him upright. He's far larger than she is, making him cumbersome, but the years have forged her into something inhuman, and she holds the Comedian as if he's nothing. She takes a short run to build up forward velocity, then hurls him through the window with enough force to shatter the tempered glass.

Despite the force of the impact, she believes that he's still conscious as he falls.

It takes him at least three seconds to reach the ground. She wonders what he thinks about during that time.

_'What's the last thing to go through the Comedian's mind as he hits the pavement?' 'His ass.' Cue rimshot._

How vulgar.

===

1985 - Encore.

She's the only woman at the Comedian's funeral. Everyone looks suitably miserable. The few attendees are mainly paunchy white men in expensive suits. Adi, Daniel, and Jon rather stand out - Daniel, God bless him, seems to be completely incapable of buying a suit that doesn't make him look like a substitute math teacher, while Jon is conspicuous for obvious reasons.

After the service, Adi hangs around and makes conversation. She inevitably ends up exchanging pleasantries with Jon. (He's Jon these days, not Doctor Manhattan, just as Nite Owl is now Daniel Dreiberg. They've all swapped their crimefighting attire for 'normal people' costumes, although Jon doesn't pull it off very convincingly.) When she shakes Jon's hand and meets his eyes, she wonders how much he knows. The funeral gives the two of them yet another thing in common: neither of them really regret that the Comedian is dead, but they both make a token effort to pretend.

As she speaks to Jon, she does not see Daniel throw the Comedian's smiley button into the open grave, and she does not wonder why Daniel had it.


End file.
